Ba'th v Ba'th: The Conflict Between Syria and Iraq, 1968-1989

by Eberhard Kienle

Ba'th Versus Ba' The Conflict Between Syria and Iraq, 1968-1989 covers the twenty year period, when the two nations were dominated by the Ba'th political party.

Genres: History, Middle East

320 pages, Hardcover

First published February 15, 1991

Reviews

[Ben Burtzos · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent, though now somewhat dated, text. It emphasizes the "territorial Ba'th state" rather than the "nation-state" model for interpreting the Syro-Iraqi conflict of the 1970s and 1980s. As Ba'th identity became a secondary concern to Arab bona fides, Kienle argues, the pan-Arabist impulse also faded away, setting the stage for the "cult of Asad" in Syria and the personalist dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Iraq (although this book is from 1990 and so misses a lot of those developments).

Not difficult to read if you have a fairly strong command of regional political history, but as with any academic text, it could be very slow going and frustrating if you have to make repeated trips to an encyclopedia or textbook. I did not much care for Kienle's transliteration of Arabic; it seems old-fashioned (i.e., "Qadhdhafi" instead of the now-more-common "Q'addafi"). Still, well-worth the effort.